Taylor Swift accepts the award for favorite album - country for "Red" at the American Music Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. Click image for a photo gallery of the AMA. (Photo: John Shearer / Invision / AP)

By Chris Talbott
Associated Press

Taylor Swift’s fans have done it again, voting her the American Music Awards artist of the year for a third time.

Swift won Sunday night’s top honor, giving her a leading four trophies. Justin Timberlake was next with three.

Swift didn’t perform, but she was a constant presence on stage and the camera alighted on her as she danced to stars like Kendrick Lamar and Luke Bryan.

Click the photo above for a photo gallery from the making of the 'CMT Crossroads.' Here, Patrick Stump of the Fall Out Boy and Kimberly Perry of The Band Perry talk over their parts as they rehearse a song on Oct. 1, 2013, in Nashville. (Photo: Larry McCormack/The Tennessean)

Stump, lead singer for rock group Fall Out Boy, was baffled — even with the help of a teleprompter — the first time his group and Perry’s sibling trio attempted the soaring ballad in rehearsal. While Kimberly Perry nailed the lyrics to her trio’s song, Stump didn’t even attempt the lines assigned to him and asked to go through the song with just Kimberly Perry and a guitar.

“There were a lot of rhythms that just came in sideways in my head,” Stump said of “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely.” “By the end of it, that will probably end up being my favorite song because that was the one we spent the most time on.”

The unexpected collaboration between The Band Perry and Fall Out Boy and the initial confoundedness with “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” is par for the course for CMT’s long-running cross-genre duet series, “Crossroads.”

While members of both bands struggled at times during rehearsals, they managed to learn each other’s songs enough to confidently perform them together during the next day’s live taping of “Crossroads.”

“It’s interesting because there’s all this angst going (into the taping) about who is going to do what,” said John Hamlin, executive producer on “Crossroads” and senior vice president of music events and talent at CMT. “When ultimately the musicians step onto the stage for the first rehearsal, they instantly speak a language that the rest of us don’t speak and they work it out between themselves. They are always very gracious and very generous and very inclusive.”

Country music fans who haven’t gotten enough of their favorite artists after Wednesday’s CMA Awards can head back to Bridgestone Arena Friday night to see many of the stars featured on that show and a few more on top of that.

ASCAP President Paul Williams poses with George Strait at the ASCAP Country Awards at the Music City Center on Monday. Click the photo to see more pictures from the awards show. (photo: Sanford Myers / The Tennessean)

ASCAP, a performing rights organization that represents songwriters, honored Strait with the Founder’s Award, its most prestigious award reserved for those who have made “pioneering contributions to music by inspiring and influencing their fellow music creators.”

“It’s like Gene Kelly didn’t invent dance but by God he could dance,” said ASCAP President Paul Williams. “And whether (George Strait) writes one song or now settles into a career of writing thousands of great songs, the fact is that there is such pure authentic emotion and strength in his voice. There’s something about the pure cowboy strength in what he does. It takes me to a place where music at its best is what it’s about.”

The Nashville, Tenn.-based country music trio says on its website it will now begin the 60-plus city tour Jan. 10 in Peoria, Ill. Lady A had been scheduled to start the tour Nov. 8 in Omaha, Neb., and more than a dozen shows will be rescheduled.

The group's website says the postponement is due in part to events surrounding the Nov. 12 release of a deluxe version of its latest album, "Golden."

The delay, which was announced this afternoon, doesn’t seem to have impacted tour rehearsals. Scott tweeted a photo of her husband and daughter sleeping on a couch with the caption, “Taking a break at rehearsals...LOVING my new normal & our little family.”

The band’s new single “Compass” from the upcoming deluxe edition of “Golden” is now at country radio.